Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate Part 25

My life for several days after Nina went away was just what I expected it would be. Everybody I knew wanted to be told about the accident, and congratulated me on her narrow escape. I was gloriously rude to several men, but nothing I could do was really any good. The first man at whom I let myself go was Dennison, and in this I made a very great mistake, because in letting him know that I was sick of the whole business I gave him a chance which he did not miss. He went round finding men who had not seen me, and persuaded them to come to me and say how sorry they had been to hear of the accident, and how glad they were that Jack Ward had saved Nina, and a lot of other desperate twaddle. Finally, Dennison having worked this joke most diligently, decided that a dinner must be given in Jack's honour, and when he met me in the quad on Sunday and told me about it I refused flatly to go.

"Of course you will come," he said, "it would be a disgrace to the college if we didn't do something to celebrate Ward's pluck and your sister's escape."

"It is a disgrace to the college to make a wretched fuss about nothing," I replied.

"You are the only man who thinks that. Next Thursday night, half-past seven, at the Sceptre," he said, and walked off.

Ward and I had been avoiding each other ever since the Wednesday night, when he having first of all been to Brasenose because they were Head of the River and lively, came to see me afterwards and talked very stupidly. I was in bed, and he woke me up to talk to me for over half-an-hour about love. Any one would have been angry, and though I tried to be polite, because he had jumped into the Cher, I told him to go away several times before he went. I had never thought it possible that I could have so much trouble about Nina. I suppose he knew that he had made an idiot of himself that evening, for if there is any time when it is decent to wake a man up and talk to him about wonderful subjects, I am sure it can never be after a huge celebration at Brasenose. I didn't know much about love, but I thought that there must be the wrong and the right kind, and that Jack had made a bad start.

So we kept out of each other's way as much as possible, and I did not know that he hated the idea of this dinner even more than I did. We might together have done something to stop it, but we had no chance unless we combined. I thought Jack wanted to be feted, and in consequence I felt absolutely savage with him, while he told me afterwards that he was simply dragged into the thing by Dennison.

However, I am not altogether sorry that the dinner took place, for though neither Jack nor I were anything like wily enough to score off Dennison, we got some rare fun out of him before that evening finished.

Collier, Lambert and Learoyd all came to tell me that I must go to the dinner before I could be persuaded to have anything to do with it, and it was really comical to hear why each of them was so keen on the affair. Collier gloried openly in the fact that it would be a huge feed, and said he was glad Dennison had engaged Rodoski to play the fiddle because music gave him a better appet.i.te, and he advised me strongly not to miss such a good chance of enjoying myself, and thought me mad to hesitate. Lambert said that Dennison had asked him to propose Ward's health, and that he hoped his speech--though quite unprepared--would not be unworthy of the evening. "The dinner itself will be nothing, just like any other kind of dinner, but don't you miss it," he concluded, and I felt sure that he had already got his speech in his pocket. Learoyd begged me not to stay away from a jolly good rag. "If we can't row, we can rag," he said, and when I told him that I was sick to death of ragging, he took such a serious view of my case that I promised that I would go so that I could get rid of him.

There were about fourteen men at the dinner-party, including Ward, Dennison, Lambert, Learoyd, Collier, Webb, and Bunny Langham, and since Dennison had taken a free hand in arranging everything, it was a tremendous affair. I never doubted that his idea was to make Ward and me look as foolish as possible, for he was the kind of man who was never really contented unless he was trying to make some one feel uncomfortable. The whole thing, I knew, was an elaborate joke at our expense, but I was not going to starve because Nina had fallen into the "Cher" and Jack had pulled her out, so I set to work to enjoy myself, though I had to sit next to Dennison. In fact, having once got to the Sceptre, I think I made more row than any one at dinner, and this must have disappointed Dennison, who started by saying those half sweet and half bitter things to me, which I never know how to answer, but which make me long to put the man who says them under the table. So I talked and shouted loud enough to drown Dennison's remarks, for it would never have done to put him out of sight during the dinner. I suppose that being unable to get any fun out of me, and having Collier, who did not like to speak much at meals, on the other side of him, he must have found some fresh amus.e.m.e.nt, for he became very quiet as the evening went on, and there was only one thing which ever made him silent and that was the kind of thing which makes most people talk.

He was, however, capable of asking Lambert to propose the toast of the evening, but nothing would make Lambert stir before some one had proposed the royal toasts, which Dennison had forgotten; and three or four men who did not want any one to talk except themselves shouted, "No speeches," until Bunny Langham got up and surprised every one by making them laugh. He did not stick to his subject very much, but he managed to make everything he said ramble round in an odd sort of way to an apology for Dennison's forgetfulness, and if only he had been sitting on the other side of me I should not have been compelled to shout during the whole of dinner, for I believe he would have been able to help me in answering the gibing remarks which had been made to me.

Dennison smiled across the table at Langham, but his smile looked as if it had been glued on to his face, and if I had been in his place I should have thrown something solid, like a pine-apple, at Bunny.

My penance, however, was to come, and when Lambert at last got up to finish off the business of making fools of Jack Ward and me, I thought of pretending that my nose had begun to bleed and of hurrying out of the room, only it seemed to be rather a weak thing to do. So I just sat there and imagined that everybody was looking at me, which made me feel most uncomfortably hot. Lambert admitted afterwards that he was in his very best form that evening, and I think he must have been, for I never heard anybody talk such a lot of nonsense in all my life. I looked at Jack Ward once, and he was evidently having a very bad time, but every one else except Collier, who was sleepy, seemed to think that Lambert was amusing. He referred to Jack in a patronizing way as "our young hero," and said that my mind had been so completely upset by this brave deed that for some days I had been a cause of considerable anxiety to my friends. When he made that remark I took a very ripe pear from a dish in front of me, but Learoyd persuaded me not to throw it. I couldn't have missed Lambert, and I think he deserved to be mobbed, but he saw what was happening and I think it made him forget some of the things he was going to say about me. At the end of his speech he actually began to recite a piece of poetry of his own, though the first line was about the brave deserving the fair and sounded like somebody else's, which was a way his poems had. He had arranged for slow music to be turned on while he did this, and there was such a general feeling against the combination that he had to sit down before he had finished. Bunny Langham, who was a member of the Horace Club, and disliked any poems made in Oxford except those which he wrote himself, led the hubbub, and after we had drunk Jack's health there was such a noise that he escaped having to reply. When any one shouted for him, as they did fitfully for some time, their voices were always drowned in the general cheerfulness of the evening, and he finally came round from the other side of the table and sat down by me.

"You have been making a most awful row," he said.

"Self-defence," I answered, "I didn't want to hear anything which Dennison said."

"A most rotten evening, the proggins will come in a few minutes if he is within shouting distance. They have been trying to get us out for the last quarter of an hour."

"Several men seem to have gone already."

We talked for some minutes, and then a waiter came in and said the proctor was coming down "The High," so we all bolted as hard as we could. Instead of turning down the Turl, I saw Dennison run down the High, with Lambert pursuing him and telling him to stop. But Dennison had been careful during the last part of the evening, and had arrived at the state when any one shouting at him made him run all the faster, while Lambert, excited by oratory and the after-effects of it, declared very loudly that he would catch Dennison if he had to run a mile.

"Dennison thinks that the proggins and all his bulldogs are after him,"

Bunny Langham said; "the whole thing was only a trick to get us out before anything happened."

"They can catch me if they like," Ward replied, "I can't run to-night."

So the three of us walked back to St. Cuthbert's, and Bunny complained bitterly that he could not come in and wait until Lambert and Dennison turned up. The first man to come into college after us was Collier, who said he had been dodging round the Radcliffe for a quarter of an hour, and soon afterwards Learoyd and Webb strolled in and pretended that they had been sitting under the table in the Sceptre, but they looked exceedingly warm. We all went to Ward's rooms, which were a kind of club for any men he knew and very often used when he was not even in them, to wait for Dennison and Lambert; but we had to stay until nearly twelve o'clock before either of them came, and then there was a tremendous thumping on the door, and Dennison, in a most exhausted condition, tottered in and nearly collapsed in the porter's arms.

It was some time before he had breath enough to walk across to Ward's rooms, but when we had got him settled in an arm-chair he began to feel better.

"At any rate I did the brute," he said, "that bulldog will remember me for the rest of his life."

I should have given the whole thing away by laughing if I had said anything, and I moved to the window so that I could put my head outside if I really had to laugh, while Collier, who had been scored off by Dennison very often, began to ask him questions. He had not to ask many, because when Dennison once began to talk, he told us everything without needing much encouragement.

"That big bull-dog has had his eye on me for ages," he said, "ever since I dodged him one night last term in the Corn, and I know that he has been saying that he would catch me some day." He stopped for a minute, being still rather breathless, and Collier asked him where he had been. "Directly I went out of the Sceptre he started off after me, and I made up my mind I would give him the deuce of a time before I had done with him, so I ran like blazes down the High, and when I turned round by Magdalen to see if he was coming I saw the brute in the distance. So off I went again, and when we got to the running-ground I heard him panting and swearing and shouting a hundred yards away. I let him get a bit closer and then went on towards Iffley; but I got a most horrible st.i.tch, so I went as hard as I could for a bit, and then climbed over a gate and sat down under a hedge. I waited until he had gone past, and then came back to college. It is the easiest thing in the world to score off a bull-dog, they are simply the stupidest men in the world."

"He must have got a long way past Iffley by now," Collier said.

"I don't care where he is, but I shall have to look out that he doesn't get level with me," Dennison replied.

"You will always have to wear a cap and gown now," Learoyd remarked.

But Dennison took no notice of this advice.

"Where's Lambert?" he asked; "everybody else seems to be here except him and that fool, Bunny Langham."

"We don't know, he has not come in yet," Collier answered, and at that moment there was a rap at the door, and as soon as Lambert got into the porch I put my head out of the window and told him to come up to Ward's rooms. As he walked across the quad I saw that he had been having a rough time of it, for his clothes did not look as immaculate as usual.

He was carrying an overcoat over his arm, and his s.h.i.+rt and collar had given way so badly that the first thing he did when he got into the room was to go to a looking-gla.s.s, and see how he could improve the appearance of things. A lot of men asked him where he had been, but he had forgotten that any of us had seen him start after Dennison, and he answered that he had just been for a stroll. "I like to have a walk by myself after a noise," he added; "the heat of that room made me feel absolutely ill."

Then Ward could not restrain himself any longer, and told Dennison that we all knew Lambert had been running after him, and that there had been no proctor and bull-dogs in the High.

"Coming suddenly out of a hot room into the open air always affects me," Lambert said. "I made up my mind I would catch Dennison if I ran until my legs gave way."

"It's all a silly lie," Dennison exclaimed; "I was chased by the big bull-dog; I should have seen that s.h.i.+rt, which was white when you started."

"I had on an overcoat," was Lambert's reply.

"Did you go to Iffley?" Collier asked.

"Iffley? Good heavens, no, I never went any further than Magdalen Bridge."

There was such a shout of laughter that I believe I should have thought anybody else except Dennison had been rotted enough.

"Then I _was_ chased by a bull-dog!" he said emphatically.

"You weren't chased by any one after I stopped, for I sat on the bridge for quite ten minutes, and then I thought I would come home by Long Wall Street, the High being rather exposed at night. I made an unfortunate choice." He shot his cuffs down, but they were terribly limp, and he looked at them with disgust.

"What happened?" Ward asked.

"I met the proggins, and having got my wind I charged right past him.

Then I ran round by the Racquet Courts, and finally hid in a garden by Keble. I ought not to have done that, because the bull-dogs know me, and I found them waiting outside when I came in. It is all your fault for running away when I told you to stop," he said to Dennison.

"I expect you were hiding in the garden at the same time Dennison was hiding from you behind a hedge in the Iffley Road," Collier said, and the idea pleased Lambert so much that he took off his tie and went to the looking-gla.s.s again. But he soon made up his mind that no tie, however beautifully tied, had a chance with a collar which looked like a piece of moderately white blotting-paper, so he stalked out of the room without wis.h.i.+ng any one good-night, though he did wave his tie in Jack Ward's direction as he went, and since it was very late I followed him.

During the rest of the term I hardly saw anything of Fred, as he was playing cricket for the 'Varsity, and whenever I tried to see him I nearly always failed. I did not try much, for I did not see why he wanted to avoid me, and I thought he was treating me very badly.

Besides, my people were bothering me a lot during the last few days of the term, and I didn't see any use in telling Fred that my mother wanted Jack Ward to come down to Worcesters.h.i.+re during the summer. As a matter-of-fact I was in an awkward position, for my mother had written to Jack Ward to thank him for pulling Nina out of the "Cher,"

and to say that she would be very glad if he could come down sometime to stay with us. But I thought Jack Ward would not come unless I asked him myself, and that rotten jumble he talked about love on my bed, and a sort of feeling that Fred would not like him to come kept me from saying anything to him. Jack only told me that my mother had written to him, and I heard from her that she had asked him to stay, so I had some time to think of what I had better do, and the more I thought the more bothered I became.

I had one idea which pleased me for a quarter of an hour; it was that Jack should come while Nina was away, but as soon as I thought of the temper Nina would be in when she found out this little plan I abandoned it quickly. Another idea, which did not please me for so long, was that I should tell Jack that my people simply hated any one who flirted, but that seemed both to be taking a good deal for granted and to be rather hard on Nina; besides, it reminded me unpleasantly of those advertis.e.m.e.nts for servants which end up, "No followers allowed,"

and which, I should think, are a great waste of money. In addition to this bother which I manufactured more or less for myself, I had another trouble which did not worry so much because I understood it better.

Mrs. Faulkner had told my mother, quite privately, that I was in her opinion doing very little work at Oxford, and my mother was not as disturbed at this as her informant thought she ought to have been. At least I suppose that must have been the reason why Mrs. Faulkner told my father the same tale, and even took the trouble to show him some of the papers which were in that wretched parcel. I could not expect him to approve of all those papers, and I did not dare to tell him that I had not chosen them myself, because he would then have accused me of laziness and extravagance and a whole host of unpleasant things, so I accepted his rebukes with a contrite spirit and wrote and told him, quite truthfully, that I read very serious papers nearly every week.

But when you have been fairly caught buying a host of sporting and theatrical literature, it isn't much good trying to persuade your father that it was a fluke. I sent him _The Spectator_ soon afterwards, but he never acknowledged it, and my mother in her next letter drew my attention to the fact that he had subscribed to this review for the last seven years. My luck was very bad just then, I seemed unable to do anything right.

There was only one thing which cheered me up, and it was that Owen had got over the worst part of his illness. But I could not even think of this without being bothered, for when a man is ill you don't mind promising to do anything, and it is only when he is getting better that you begin to realize how much you have promised. It was certain that I must pay the expenses of his illness, and it was equally certain that I should not have enough money to pay my college bills as well; the whole thing made me very pensive.

Murray was in my rooms one night just before the end of the term, and I was talking over my difficulties, for he was always hard-up himself and not likely to offer to lend me anything, when a note was brought in from Fred, and the first thing which fell out of the envelope was a cheque for fifty pounds. I did not know what to think of that, but the note upset me altogether.

"Dear G.o.dfrey," Fred wrote, "you told me some time ago that you were hard up, so I am sending you a cheque in case you want it. My people have just sent me more money than I shall use this year, and you can pay me back when you like. I am afraid I shan't be able to come down to you after the 'Varsity match, as I have promised to go with a reading party to Cornwall for two months. I believe the only thing to do down there is to play golf, which isn't much fun, but Henderson is coming, and we shall try to get some cricket. Please remember me to your people. Yours ever, F. F.